DEVI NARAIN Vs. HARISH CHANDRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE learned District Judge, Jaipur City, under the impugned order Das held the application of the petitioners under Section 5 of the Indian Arbitration Act, 1940 to be infructuous in view of the fact that the arbitrator had submitted his award in the Court. This order is challenged by the petitioner.

(2.) THE relevant facts for the disposal of this revision petition are these. An application under Section 20 of the Indian Arbitration Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was filed by the non-petitioner against the petitioners in the Court of District Judge, Jaipur City on 27-4-1978, and one Mr. Guman Chand Lunia, a practising lawyer at Jaipur, was appointed an arbitrator to decide the disputes between the parties vide order of the Court dated 11-11-1978. THE said Shri Lunia entered into arbitration. An application under Section 5 of the Act was filed on 27-8-79 on behalf of the petitioners for revoking the authority of the arbitrator. In that application, an application for stay of the proceedings before the arbitrator was also filed, but for one reason or the other no progress could be made either in the application under Section 5 or in the stay matter, and the arbitrator, Shri G.C. Lunia, proceeded with the reference. THE arbitrator gave his award on October 12, 1979. On October 15, 1979, the Court gave notice of the filing of the award to the parties, and the award is yet to be made the rule of the Court. It may also be observed that when the application under Section 5 of the Act came up before the learned District Judge, Jaipur City, on 19-1-1980, he rejected the application holding that as the arbitrator has filed the award, the same has become infructuous.

(3.) IN Prafulla Chandra Karmakar v. Panchanan Karmakar AIR 1946 Cal 427, the facts were that the order for reference to the arbitration was made on 23-11945. Soon after that, the plaintiff and defendant No. 3 on 16-4-1945 applied for supersession of the reference. However, the arbitrator submitted their award on 20-4-1945 and the parties thereupon filed objections against the award. It was held by the Court as follows:--